Launched in 1976 as the “festival of festivals,” the Toronto International Film Festival has grown into the greatest film event in North America, rivaled only by Cannes as a leading showcase, market, and discovery zone for international cinema. Of the 352 films screening at this year’s event, which opens Thursday inight, 91% are having their official world, international or North American premiere at this year’s festival and many will be courting buyers from around the world. The massive festival will unspool on some 23 screens around the city, with most press and industry showings concentrated in the Yorkville neighborhood. Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn‘s “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen” is debuting with its world premiere on opening night. The movie, exploring the history of the Inuit people through the eyes of a father and daughter, marks Kunuk’s follow-up to his 2001 film, “Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner),” which won the Camera D’or in Cannes and then the prize for best Canadian film here in Toronto.

Calling the film a “visionary work of art,” festival co-director Noah Cowan added, in an email exchange with indieWIRE back when announcing the opening film, “Once we saw Norm and Zach’s film, we knew that one of the most important films from and about Canada had crossed our paths.” Continuing he explained, “The unique storytelling and aesthetics of this film as our Opening Night speaks both to our core charitable mission of fostering motion picture culture and to showcase the diversity of global filmmaking worldwide.”

In an announcement from the festival, the film (set in 1922 in Igloolik) was described as “the story of the last great Inuit shaman, Avva, and his beautiful and headstrong daughter, Apak, who lives one foot in her father’s world and the other on the verge of the future.” Continuing, the description said, “As Avva strives to keep his family together on their path into the twentieth century, where the rise of Christianity and commerce is putting a swift end to their culture, a team of Danish scientists arrives to make record of his way of life.”

The poster image for the 2006 Toronto Internationall Film Festival. Image provided by the festival

More that 300,000 public and industry admissions are expected at this year’s festival, to view films from 61 countries. And as festival heads Piers Handling (director and CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival Group), Michele Maheux (the group’s managing director), and Noah Cowan explained in a statement welcoming attendees, “Our mission is ‘transforming the way people see the world’ and we feel that every year we offer our audience films that change their lives.” Continuing they explained, “They are better informed because of this experience and gain insight into the various cultures that co-exist on this planet.”

The Toronto International Film Festival will continue through September 16, 2006.

The complete lineup for the festival’s 18 sections, as previously published in indieWIRE, follows: